German police raid homes of suspects ‘threatening state’

BERLIN: German police on Monday raided the homes and workplaces of a policeman and another person suspected of planning “serious violence threatening to the state”, authorities said.

The suspects feared that Germany’s refugee policies would impoverish the country and so had begun stockpiling food and ammunition and planning attacks, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

“The suspects see the crisis they fear taking hold as an opportunity to capture left-wing political representatives and kill them with their weapons,” the statement said. It was not clear from initial reports whether they had been detained.

Pictures on the website of the mass-circulation daily Bild showed black-clad police, some in balaclavas, carrying out searches.

The suspected policeman worked in the eastern town of Ludwigslust, some 150 km (90 miles) northwest of Berlin. Disciplinary measures have been initiated against him, the Interior Ministry of the state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern said.

Police also carried out raids on the properties of people linked to the two suspects, but who were not themselves suspects, the prosecutor’s office added. One of these was also a policeman, the state Interior Ministry said.

The suspects had been in contact with other people on chatrooms.__The Nation